In recent years, many popular musical performers have taken to the road, performing a series of concerts in many locations across the country. Many of these performers tour the concert circuit in a series of one night stands; that is, they perform one or two shows a day in a given location, and move to a different city for the next day's performance.
Since some of these performers may have concerts in as many as 200 cities in a single year, the schedules which they and the people who travel with them must follow are extremely tight. After a performance in the evening, everything must be packed and moved in trucks to the location of the next day's concert. Upon arriving in town, all of the equipment must be set up quickly, so that it is ready for the performance that evening.
An integral part of such concert tours is the sale of merchandise (such as posters, T-shirts, record albums, and various other souvenirs) which feature the star performer or performers of the tour. Since most of the people attending the concert are fans of the star performer, they are prime targets for the sale of such merchandise. As a result, the amount of such merchandise which can be sold at a personal appearance by the featured performer is quite large.
The amount of merchandise which may be sold is limited by the manner in which the merchandise is vended. Some concert facilities have no permanent souvenir booths. Some concert facilities have only one or two permanent souvenir booths from which such merchandise may be sold. When there are 5,000 or more potential customers, one or two selling booths simply do not provide nearly enough selling space. Because there is not enough selling space, customers are forced to wait in very long lines if they wish to purchase souvenirs. This invariably causes all but the most enthusiast fans to forego purchasing the souvenir, resulting in greatly diminished sales of merchandise.
Because there are such a great number of customers for a single booth, there is also a problem of running out of merchandise quickly. These booths do not have sufficient storage space, so the merchandise must be brought over in boxes and sold directly out of these boxes. This also wastes the time of the sales people, since they have have to sort through several boxes to find the desired article. If the booths should run out of the supply of one of the items being sold, that item must be brought in from a supply truck, a procedure which takes considerable time. During this time many potential customers may become tired of waiting and leave.
In addition, these booths do not have any display capability. Customers may not become aware what is offered for sale, except by moving up to the counter and inquiring. Many of the fans may not be aware that merchandise they may wish to purchase is available. Since many of these purchases are impulse purchases, they may never be made unless the merchandise is attractively displayed. Also, since many of these concerts are held in the evening, poor lighting is a frequent problem for, without proper lighting, the sales booth may be rather inconspicuous, causing many people to leave the concert location without having their attention drawn to the sales booth.
The majority of locations at which these concerts are held do not even have such sales booths from which merchandise may be sold. Some promoters have utilized booths set up on the spot at a concert location. These booths have had to date the disadvantages of the permanent booths as described above, and, in addition, they are very difficult to set up. It takes considerable time to unload, set up, knock down, and reload such booths, and since most road shows are on very tight schedules, such knock down booths are not very widely used.
In order to overcome some of these disadvantages, many concert sales people use folding card tables. Such card tables can be easily set up, and have the further advantage of being capable of being set up in multiple locations. These card tables have, however, many of the same disadvantages as the booths described above, for example, there is not enough selling space, and there is no display capability. With card tables, merchandise is sold out even more quickly than in booths.
In addition, there is a recurrent problem of merchandise being stolen as card tables have the disadvantage that they are quite unsecured. Large numbers of people mill around the entire sales area such that sales people can be quickly overwhelmed by the surrounding customers.
It can therefore be seen that the above described merchandise vending booths and tables are unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons, causing a great reduction in the amount of merchandise which could be sold.